


A Better Soldier

by Cerberusia



Category: Callan (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, First Time, First time with a man, M/M, not exactly hate sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 14:17:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20193637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerberusia/pseuds/Cerberusia
Summary: Post-The Worst Soldier I Ever Saw, Meres comes over with Scotch and a surprising amount of civility.





	A Better Soldier

At least the bastard had had the decency to bring Scotch. "To soothe your battered working-class pride," he'd said.

Callan could have shut the door in his face right away and saved himself the trouble; he was drinking tonight, and he wasn't keen to drink too heavily around Meres. But the Scotch was Chivas Regal, and Callan was just tired and hard-up enough to remember that if Meres got too insufferable, Callan could always throw him out the door and keep the Scotch.

So they drank the Scotch with water - because Meres had brought a bottle of that too, no nasty Bayswater tap water for him - and if Meres wasn't precisely _pleasant_ company, he at least managed to be his version of _convivial_. All the time, he was studying Callan. When their hands brushed over a drink, Callan knew damn well it was no accident. When Callan broke apart his Magnum on the table to clean it, he felt Meres' gaze on his hands.

And now Meres was sprawled in a deliberate sort of way in Callan's armchair. And Callan was watching him, and thinking about it. Thinking about taking Meres up on the offer implicit in his spread legs and lazy, knowing smile.

It was no real secret what Meres did with the most amenable of his pretty trainees. He was so plainly a poof - a poof that took note of a pretty bird if she looked vulnerable or masochistic enough, but still basically a poof - that Callan was sometimes amazed that the rich girls he was occasionally assigned to woo were ever fooled. Mind, to the working-class London mind, nearly every toff came off like a complete poof, so perhaps they were just used to it.

Callan also knew - had deduced from a glance snuck at Meres' file, in fact - the sordid circumstances between the death of that private guardsman. To a worldly mind, the ligature marks on the man's neck combined with Meres' barely-restrained sexual sadism to form the obvious conclusion. In a quarrel some years ago he had shocked Meres by revealing this, and added some unflattering comments about how stupid Meres must be to think nobody who knew those details would twig. Meres, his top lip curled into a sneer like a dog baring its teeth, had been furious but unable to deny it.

If you took the long view, going to bed with Meres probably wasn't worth it. Meres' habits made him an obvious target for blackmail, and should anybody find out about a rendezvous, it would do the same for Callan. They'd got rid of it in the new sexual offences act just last year, but that didn't mean everything was hunky-dory if you got a reputation as a shirt-lifter. Meres managed alright, with everybody in the Section minding their own business, but Callan didn't know how he and Hunter had negotiated the obvious blackmail risk, except that Meres had presumably claimed that he didn't care who knew, and Hunter believed him.

Besides that, Meres' own peccadilloes might lead to some awkward moments. Callan had no intention of ending up like that poor private guardsman. Nevertheless, the very danger of it intrigued Callan. There was a thrill to the idea of forcing cool, arrogant, pretty Toby to submit, which Callan doubted any lover had yet managed.

"You look like you're makin' me an offer, mate." He gave Meres an obvious once-over before going back to cleaning out the barrel.

"Well, you needn't feel obliged to take it." Meres' tone said: but it would be _so_ enjoyable if you did. This must be the way queers did it: gently, gently. Of course it rarely paid to be too forward with birds, either; but at least if a bird didn't fancy it, she probably wouldn't knock your lights out. "I'd hate for you to feel _unappreciated_," Meres added. He was still watching Callan with that peculiar and suggestive look in his pale eyes. Callan wondered how well that went down with the pretty boys in Soho nightclubs.

You don't think I'm going to do it, thought Callan. You think I'm going to laugh or thump you or tell you to get out. You think I'm going to be scared of a queer propositioning me. Well, Toby, I'm not scared of _you_.

Callan put down the stock of his Magnum.

"Get up," he said. Meres raised an eyebrow, but got up. His stance was wary. If Callan hit him, he would hit back.

"David, If you feel the need to prove your red-blooded masculinity with some sordid display of violence," he started, and Callan grabbed him by the collar and slammed his back into the wall. Not gently, but not nearly as hard as he could have, and Meres knew it.

"You're once to talk about _sordid displays of violence_, mate," he said, and kissed him.

It was strange to be the shorter person for the first time, and the length of neck it forced him to expose made him feel slightly vulnerable. He pulled Meres' face down to compensate. But he kissed Meres like he'd kiss a beautiful but tremendously irritating woman who needed to be taken to bed to make her agreeable: forcefully and passionately. Hell, if bedding Meres made him _agreeable_, Callan would consider doing it again in future. It promised to be more fun than belting him; not because there was no satisfaction in planting Meres a good one, but because Meres hit back, _hard_. Callan had thus far won all their fights, but only at painful cost.

The mouth under his was lax with shock for a moment, but once Meres realised that Callan wasn't going to haul off and clobber him, he returned the kiss enthusiastically. He even brought his arms around Callan and scraped at nape of his neck with his fingernails, which no woman had ever thought to do but sent a pleasurable shiver running through him.

"You know what I think, Toby?" Up close, Meres' eyes were grey-blue and cold as glass. "I think you'd let me screw you right up against this wall, rough as anything. And I think you'd _like_ it."

Meres' tongue flickered out to lick his lower lip, curved by a tiny smile.

"An interesting supposition. What do you mean to do with it?"

"What do you think?" Callan kissed him again, just as hard as before, and broke away to whisper harshly into Meres' mouth: "I'm going to test it."

And Meres must have liked that, because his arms tightened around Callan and they went back to kissing, satisfied that neither was about to produce a pistol. Speaking of, they were pressed so close together that Callan could feel the bulge of Meres' gun against his chest. He liked it, the gun and the solid body under the suit: it was a reminder that Toby was the same as him. A killer. Not just as a result of their jobs, but by nature. They'd detested each other when Meres first joined the Section, like two dog-foxes squabbling over the same patch. Callan still wouldn't go so far as to say that he _liked_ Meres. But he trusted him in the way you grow to trust somebody when you rely on them to cover your back once a week for three years. He'd even grown to appreciate Meres' barely-restrained sadism as a tool, now that he'd stopped wasting his time trying to thwart Callan's own operations.

It didn't do to let Meres know that, though - it might encourage him to be even more foul than he already was. Callan forced a knee between Meres' and pressed him a little harder into the wall. He'd been serious about screwing him up against it. He'd often longed to give Meres a bit of rough treatment, though not specifically by fucking him - his file said he was 'sexually normal', thank you very much, though after this little escapade that was probably no longer true. Meres, on the other hand...yes, Toby had probably thought about this before. Toby was, frankly, a deviant. Getting rogered by his colleague was probably the least dubious fantasy he had.

"This how you spend your Saturday nights, then? We know you posh queers all want to take it from a sailor or a brickie, but I always thought you were too busy doing your pretty boys to get it from the other side." Callan had his hand on Meres' neck, not squeezing, just pressing a little. Meres' pupils were huge and he had to gasp a little before he replied,

"Well, you know - everybody likes to change it up once in a while, don't they?" Which meant Callan was right. He could even feel flattered about not being Meres' usual type, if he wanted a cheap way to puff up his ego. He didn't. He knew exactly what a man like Meres might find attractive about a man like Callan. 'Rough trade', they called it. Well, Callan was willing to play as rough as Meres was able to take. He bit at Meres' lips while he pulled open his shirt. Meres' clever, long-fingered hands worked on his buttons too, and Callan allowed it. When those hands slipped up his undershirt to stroke his bare skin, he could feel Meres' gun calluses.

He'd been serious about doing him up against the wall. Sex promised to be an enjoyable change of pace, but he wasn't up to pretending that they liked one another. He could still hear the cook-housekeeper remarking - "How have _you_ ended up with a friend like _him_?" - and how he'd had to fight off derisory laughter.

Underneath his clothes, Meres was sleek and strong. Callan had often been struck by the immense coiled power within Meres' slim frame, and it was far more obvious when he could see the muscle move under the skin. His chest was mostly smooth, despite the hair on his forearms, and his big hands looked more menacing when they were no longer hidden in his cuffs. Callan had seen him strangle a woman with them. He was not so marked and nicked as Callan, but Callan could feel the odd raised line and rough patch of scarring that his fair skin hid. It was a good-looking, strong, youthful body; but like Callan's own, it was honed to be functional rather than beautiful.

They felt each other up for a while, taking their time, getting off their trousers but not their pants. Callan was reasonably certain that if he'd applied just a little pressure, he could have been balls-deep already; but if he was going to do something stupid like fuck another member of the Section, he should take his time and enjoy it. Toby wouldn't have anything to make snide comments about come the morning.

A couple of times, it seemed as if Meres was going to say something. Callan got a little rougher with him and gripped the back of his neck until the urge seemed to pass. God, he thought, if only rough treatment usually made Toby this docile. He was still smirking a little whenever Callan pulled back, but then, that was just how Meres looked, like the wind had changed and his face had set like that, as his mother had always threatened. Perhaps he thought he'd got one over on Callan, seducing him like that - yes, that would be a real sop to Toby's already healthy ego.

Irritated, Callan shoved Meres harder against the wall. Meres just brought up his leg to wrap around Callan's in an obvious _yes, get on with it_ move. Meres was a sadist, as was obvious not only to Callan but also probably the rest of the Section; but he was also at least doing a convincing impression of masochism too. Which meant that if Callan really wanted to aggravate him, he could insist on tender face-to-face love-making. Watch Toby trying to keep his composure through _that_. Unfortunately, that would require him to engage in said tender love-making with Meres, which he didn't much fancy. Meres had become more tolerable over the past year and for that matter over the past quarter-hour, but Callan was not prepared to pretend that he _liked_ him. Nobody with any sense liked Meres.

Still, Meres wanted rough, and so did he. He got hold of Meres' shoulders, the skin hot and smooth but the muscle tensing underneath, and made him turn around before he finally rid them both of their final articles of clothing. It felt ridiculous to stand there in his kitchen-come-living-room, naked with another man; it felt like something staged.

"Oh God, are you just going to _think_ about it, or do it?" Meres wriggled impatiently. "You do know how this works, don't you? I'd think prison would be a pretty clear introduction, but if I need to draw a diagram -"

Callan sank his teeth into Meres' shoulder, and he trailed off with a throttled moan. Callan leaned on him harder, plastering their bodies together so his erection rubbed suggestively against Toby's arse, as he investigated the erotic possibilities of Meres' long neck. Yes, he _did_ like Callan nuzzling and nipping and sucking at his throat and behind his ear. He liked it even more when Callan bit a little harder and sucked the skin into his mouth to leave a bruise.

There was Vaseline in the side table, a tiny tin ostensibly for use as lip salve and in Callan's case for burns and gun barrels. Callan put one hand in the small of Meres' back as he coated his cock with the lubricant. He'd never been bent, not even in the Scrubs, but Meres didn't need to draw him the sarcastically offered diagram.

It wasn't terribly different or difficult, as it turned out, which was just as Callan had thought. He'd never done it with a woman in this position - Callan preferred to treat his girlfriends nicely, like the ladies they usually were - but the principle of buggery wasn't hard to pick up. Meres helped. Callan watched him deliberately relax, all the tension draining out of his body like water. But still that steely core, all that energy and power like a cobra or a big cat...it was attractive, which made his personality all the more unfortunate.

Penetration was smooth and easy, and shockingly satisfying. The silky clutch of a person's body - it could have been a woman's cunt, except that the hips in his hands were slim and the body had no softness, no give, no breasts to cup. All Meres' body went still as Callan's cock slid into him.

"_Ah_, David, " Meres gasped, with a pleasurable sigh Callan didn't think was faked. He was bracing himself on the wall, and Callan's great worry was that he might try to talk, so he got tighter hold of Meres' hips and started fucking him, steady and deep.

He'd thought Meres might try to stay silent, try to deny any acknowledgement that Callan was skilled at something; he'd also thought that Meres might try to throw him off with mocking compliments and references to his personal life. He got neither. He got Meres' heaving rib cage as Callan bottomed out inside him, reverberating with a low groan like Callan was striking something deep within him.

He couldn't pretend that he was doing this with anybody else, though if he'd desired to he might have been able to imagine another man in Meres' place, a hard young military man, one of the officers who'd treated Callan with the generalised contempt due to all squaddies. He didn't need to. Meres stood in for all those men. Meres stood in for the upper-crust public school establishment that had fucked him over, kept fucking him over every time he tried to leave this squalid life to which it had condemned him.

_Up against this wall, rough as anything._ Well, Meres had agreed. Callan's next thrust threw him off-balance and forced him to lean more of his weight on the wall.

Callan was under no illusion that this was a punishment for Meres. If Meres had invited Callan to roger him hard, then that was because he liked it and had probably thought about getting rogered by Callan a great deal before committing to propositioning him. And roger him Callan did, taking by the hips in a rough grasp and taking a pace that wasn't fast, but deep and unrelenting. Meres really gasped then, and had to rest his cheek on the wall so Callan could see his dark hair plastered to his fair temple with sweat, and a healthy flush in his cheek. It was an agreeable look on Meres, made him seem almost human. Callan had seen a similar expression on him when he'd just throttled somebody.

Callan gave it to him, and Meres took it. He was louder when Callan took him harder, but never quite loud enough that Callan feared for his thin walls. It was tempting to lean in and hiss in Meres' ear - something filthy, something demeaning, the stuff brutes used to whisper while they drilled their 'boyfriends' in the Scrubs. He saved his breath for making Meres make noise instead. There was nothing to be accomplished by pissing Meres off, and admitting that this was a way to take out his frustrations with every public-school officer he'd ever had to say 'Yes sir' to would only make Meres smirk and pass snide comment, probably in Hunter's hearing.

So he and Meres moved together, and it was good, better than it had any right to be. Meres let out harsh tremulous breaths and Callan grunted in his ear as he fucked him hard and thought _Yes, take it, take it_, until he stopped thinking at all. He lost himself in the simple animal pleasure of sex: a body under his, a voice that moaned agreeably, the tightening tingling low down that heralded orgasm. He dimly noticed that Meres had taken one hand off the wall and put it between his legs, and when Callan put his own hand there to check, their fingers tangled on Meres' erection and Meres moaned, high and strangled.

The sudden shocking intimacy was too much: Callan took hold of Meres' hips again and drove his cock into him over and over, until the knot in the pit of his stomach drew so tight and pulled and suddenly unravelled, waves of pleasure unfurling up his spine and through his cock and down his thighs and exploding behind his eyes until he couldn't see.

He hung on and just as he was coming down Meres tensed and stilled, and Callan opened his eyes to watch Meres' handsome face go slack as his body trembled in Callan's tight embrace. For the first time, he felt somewhat affectionate towards Meres. Finally, with a shuddering sigh, Meres relaxed.

It was a slightly indelicate business, disengaging their bodies; but that was sex for you. Callan hadn't been prepared to watch his come start to leak out, nor for the surprisingly aphrodisiac effect it had on him. He just handed Meres a tissue, but suspected his reaction had been noticed anyway. Toby didn't miss things like that.

Callan had been quite prepared to kick Meres out as soon as they were done; but they were both jelly-legged and Meres didn't seem in an unpleasantly talkative mood, so they retired to the uncomfortable sofa for a few minutes. They took the Scotch with them.

"Well, David, I'm impressed, " said Meres at last, smoking a contemplative cigarette. Callan had only seen him smoke once before, and that was for a role; perhaps it was something he normally only did after sex. "I knew you had it in you, but I wasn't sure you'd go _through_ with it, if you see what I mean."

"I see that if you talk rubbish, I'm chucking you out on your ear. And I'm keeping your Scotch."

Meres laughed, but was agreeably quiet as he finished his cigarette. He looked attractively rumpled and young, and not in the least self-conscious about his unclothed state.

After the cigarette was smoked to the filter and stubbed out in a hastily-procured ashtray Callan hunted out from his bookshelf where it was serving as a bookend, Meres took his clothes and his leave with no more than usual civility, and no less than his usual touch of superiority. But he _did_ leave the Scotch.


End file.
